A federal law enforcement agent outside a home during a raid in south Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026.Victor J. Blue—Bloomberg via Getty Images
Support for dismantling Immigration and Customs Enforcement, once a fringe slogan on the left, has broken into the Republican mainstream. Fresh polling shows not only that more Americans overall now favor scrapping ICE, but that conservatives are driving a surprising share of that shift. The numbers point to a broader crisis of confidence in how the agency operates and in President Donald Trump’s immigration strategy.
Nationally, the idea of getting rid of ICE is no longer a political outlier. Surveys taken in Jan show a country that is closely divided but tilting toward abolition, with intensity rising after high profile clashes between agents and civilians. That change is colliding with long standing partisan instincts on law and order, and it is starting to scramble the usual red versus blue map on immigration enforcement.
The national mood turns against ICE
The clearest sign of the turn comes from a national poll that found More Americans now back getting rid of ICE than oppose it, with support at 46% compared with 41% who want to keep the agency intact. That same research, conducted in Jan, shows the gap between those two camps widening compared with earlier in the month, suggesting that public reaction to recent enforcement incidents is still unfolding. A separate breakdown of the same polling stream notes that the share favoring abolition, again at 46%, has edged ahead of the 41% opposed, a symbolic tipping point in a debate that for years was dominated by calls to “abolish” on one side and “back the blue” on the other.
Another Jan snapshot, highlighted in an infographic that has circulated widely, shows just how lopsided opinion has become among Democrats and how much room there is for movement among everyone else. In that breakdown, Support for abolition among Democrats hits a striking 76%, with only a small minority in the party resisting the idea. Independents are more cautious but still lean toward dismantling the agency, with backing at 47%, a sign that skepticism about ICE is not confined to the left. A separate video summary of a Jan national survey by the economist and Yugov describes the same basic pattern, with a survey finding a “historical shift” in public opinion as more citizens line up on the side of abolition than against it.
Why Republicans are suddenly flirting with abolition
The real political shock, though, is on the right. A new wave of polling described in Jan shows that Republican openness to scrapping ICE has jumped sharply, enough for one analysis to flatly state that support for abolition is surging among conservatives. One report on the trend, framed around a Minneapolis shooting that put ICE tactics under a harsh spotlight, notes that the idea of dismantling the agency is now getting a serious look from Republican voters who once treated it as a culture war litmus test, a shift captured in a Jan deep dive into the fallout. A separate Jan analysis of the same polling wave reports that a new poll found that 46 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly support abolishing ICE, compared with 41 percent who somewhat or strongly oppose it, with the gap driven in part by rising Republican discontent.
That frustration is not happening in a vacuum. For years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has increasingly arrested and deported immigrants who had lived in the United States for years without serious criminal records, including many who had never been convicted of a crime at all, a pattern documented in detail by researchers tracking Immigration and Customs operations. A Jan analysis of Republican opinion notes that a new CBS News survey found GOP support for abolition up by double digits over the last measurement, suggesting that repeated stories of long settled families being torn apart are starting to cut through even in conservative media ecosystems.
ICE tactics, Trump’s brand, and a brewing trust problem
Behind the abolition numbers sits a broader verdict on how ICE is doing its job. A recent national poll found that 59% of voters now say the agency is “too aggressive,” up 10 points since July, a spike that would alarm any political strategist. Another Jan breakdown of the same research reports that support for cooperation with ICE among Republicans is a robust 85%, but that number is matched by opposition among Democrats at 83%, with Independents again splitting the difference. A separate write up of the findings notes that only a minority of voters, just Twenty nine percent, say ICE is effectively carrying out its core mission, while far more respondents either fault both parties or say neither side has a good handle on the issue.
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